Ruby FREEMAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rudolph W. GIULIANI, Defendant Civil Action No. 21-3354 (BAH) United States District Court, District of Columbia Signed July 13, 2023 Counsel Aaron E. Nathan, Marie Annie Houghton-Larsen, Pro Hac Vice, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, NY, Brittany Marie Williams, Protect Democracy, Philadelphia, PA, Christine Kwon, Pro Hac Vice, John Langford, Pro Hac Vice, Protect Democracy, Los Angeles, CA, John Tyler Knoblett, Meryl Conant Governski, Timothy Ryan, Michael J. Gottlieb, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Washington, DC, Rachel Goodman, Pro Hac Vice, Protect Democracy, New York, NY, Sara Chimene-Weiss, Pro Hac Vice, Protect Democracy, Washington, DC, Von DuBose, Pro Hac Vice, DuBose Miller, Atlanta, GA, for Ruby Freeman, Wandrea' Moss. Joseph D. Sibley IV, Camara & Sibley LLP, Austin, TX, for Rudolph W. Giuliani. Howell, Beryl A., United States District Judge Opinion *1 MINUTE ORDER (paperless) ADDRESSING three discovery-related motions set out below and CAUTIONING DEFENDANT RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, in light of the fact that the parties failed to reach “an agreement,” see Pls.' 81 Mot. for Discovery Sanctions at 14 (explaining that recent settlement negotiations fell apart when defendant Giuliani informed plaintiffs on July 10, 2023, through counsel, that he “did not agree with the key principles” of a potential settlement negotiated by his attorney). First, plaintiffs request that “this Court [ ] award $89,172.50 in attorneys' fees,” Pls.' 78 Submission Detailing the Costs and Fees Incurred in Preparing the 44 Motion to Compel Discovery (“Pls.' Fees Motion”) at 10-11. Defendant Giuliani was previously directed to “pay for plaintiffs' attorneys' fees and costs for their 44 Motion by July 7, 2023,” see Minute Order (June 23, 2023), and by that deadline of July 7, 2023, defendant Giuliani had neither objected to nor requested an extension of time to respond or contest the reasonableness of plaintiffs' requested attorneys' fees detailed in Pls.' Fees Motion. Accordingly, defendant Giuliani is DIRECTED, by July 25, 2023, to reimburse plaintiffs $89,172.50 in attorneys' fees incurred for plaintiffs' 44 Motion to Compel Discovery. Second, defendant Giuliani has filed no opposition to plaintiffs' 70 Revised Motion to Compel Giuliani Partners and Giuliani Communications to Respond to Properly-Served Rule 45 Subpoenas and Rule 30(b)(6) Deposition Subpoenas (“Pls.' Giuliani Businesses Motion”), which opposition was due on July 7, 2023, see D.D.C. LCvR 7(b) (authorizing, if no timely opposition is filed to a motion, that “the Court may treat the motion as conceded”). Given his clarification in a declaration that he is the sole owner of both Giuliani Partners LLC and Giuliani Communications LLC (collectively, the “Giuliani Businesses”), see 73 June 26, 2023 Declaration of Rudolph Giuliani (“Giuliani Decl.”) 2-3 (explaining that Giuliani owns “Giuliani Partners LLC” and the owner of “Giuliani Communications LLC” is “Giuliani Partners LLC”), he has no one to blame but himself for ignoring plaintiffs' pending motion to compel the Giuliani Businesses to comply with discovery obligations. Defendant Giuliani's declaration was filed only in response to the Court's June 22, 2023 Minute Order and not in response to the plaintiffs' Giuliani Businesses Motion. See Minute Order (June 22, 2023) (directing defendant Giuliani to file a declaration that answers certain questions about the ownership and employees of the Giuliani Businesses given that “counsel for defendant Rudolph Giuliani confirmed... that defendant has not responded to his own counsel's request for information regarding discovery from his eponymous businesses”). Accordingly, defendant Giuliani is DIRECTED, by July 25, 2023, to SHOW CAUSE why plaintiffs' 70 Giuliani Businesses Motion should not be granted as conceded. Third, plaintiffs indicate in the parties' 77 June 30, 2023, Joint Status Report Regarding the Status of Discovery and Outstanding Compliance Issues (“JSR”), that defendant still has “taken no steps to collect and search repositories outside of TrustPoint[,]” has produced no materials from the Giuliani Businesses, and only produced documents from TrustPoint that “appear to consist almost exclusively of non-usable, non-readable raw data,” 77 JSR at 9, 13. Notably, defendant Giuliani largely does not contest these discovery shortcomings, see JSR at 17 (“Defendant generally agrees with Plaintiffs' recitation of events[.]”), which shows a failure to comply with the Court's May 31, 2023 Minute Order (“May Order”) (as amended by the June 16, 2023 Minute Order), directing him to “search and produce all materials responsive to plaintiffs' RFPs... within the date ranges agreed to by the parties, with the assistance of a professional vendor.” Yet, plaintiffs' review of defendant's document productions remains underway, see Pls.' 81 Mot. for Discovery Sanctions at 17 n.1 (“Plaintiffs note that they are submitting this Motion without having been able to complete a full review of Defendant Giuliani's productions[.]”), and defendant Giuliani may have belatedly produced more documents in compliance with the May Order, so the parties are directed to provide the Court with an updated joint status report regarding his compliance with his discovery obligations and the May Order. Accordingly, the parties are DIRECTED, by August 4, 2023, jointly to submit an updated status report on discovery compliance and any outstanding issues. *2 Defendant Giuliani is CAUTIONED that failure to comply with the May Order, directing him to “search and produce all materials responsive to plaintiffs' RFPs... within the date ranges agreed to by the parties, with the assistance of a professional vendor,” including from his two eponymous businesses, for which he declared, subject to penalty of perjury, that he was “collecting, searching, and producing responsive materials... that are in [his] possession, custody, or control,” see 73 Giuliani Decl. 12, may result in severe discovery sanctions, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A) (outlining potential sanctions for a party “fail[ing] to obey an order to provide or permit discovery,” including “(i) directing that the matters embraced in the order or other designated facts be taken as established for purposes of the action, as the prevailing party claims[;]... (vi) rendering a default judgment against the disobedient party; or (vii) treating as contempt of court the failure to obey”); see also Parsi v. Daioleslam, 778 F.3d 116, 130 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (explaining that courts have the “inherent power” to impose sanctions for violating a court order, including “contempt citations, fines, awards of attorneys' fees, and such other orders and sanctions as they find necessary, including even dismissals and default judgments”) (citation omitted).